JMalrix

Evenin’ Goofies,

My latest writing came from a very real, slightly nostalgic place.

Many years ago, I briefly lived in Davenport, Florida, just outside of Orlando. Depending on traffic, I was only minutes away from Walt Disney World. I had annual passes and went often enough that I could tell the difference between a “busy” day and a “run for your life” day before I even got through the parking booths.

The funny thing about having access to something magical is that, eventually, it stops feeling magical.

I stopped treating Disney like a destination and started treating it like a neighborhood. Sometimes I’d drive over just to ride a single attraction. Sometimes I’d go for dinner. Sometimes I’d just walk around for an hour and leave. (And yes, despite rumors to the contrary, JMalrix has been known to date.)

It wasn’t until later that I realized what I had stopped seeing:

The family that spent a year saving for a perfect vacation.

The kid seeing Cinderella Castle for the first time.

The parent desperately checking weather apps because a thunderstorm might wipe out the fireworks they spent thousands of dollars to experience.

When you live close enough, you forget that for many people Disney isn’t routine. It’s an event.

Recently, I sat down at my laptop and asked myself a simple question: What would Epcot feel like if everyone disappeared?

Not closed. Not abandoned. Just… completely empty.

The answer turned out to be stranger and more emotional than I expected. Disney parks are designed entirely around humanity. Take away the crowds and suddenly you notice every lone footstep, every looping note of background music, and every echo.

That question eventually became Incognito Mode: Dreamland, a special Secret Chords side story featuring Theo and Kristina wandering through an empty Epcot after hours.

For Theo, it’s surreal.

For Kristina, it becomes something much more personal.

Here’s a small excerpt:

They were led through the Epcot main gates by three Luminary staffers who spoke only in hand signals and “this way, please,” each step rehearsed until it looked like choreography. As soon as the electronic reader acknowledged Kristina’s name, the handlers peeled off, walking briskly back to the lot, leaving Theo and Kristina at the edge of an empty kingdom.
The entry plaza—usually a choke point of squabbling families and sunburned tour groups—looked staged for an afterlife. The trash cans were gone, probably rolled backstage for pressure washing; the flagpoles cast long, undisturbed shadows across the pavement. The only noise came from a hidden orchestra, blaring at a volume the normal crowds would have muffled into background suggestion. Here, each brass flourish and synth sweep was the voice of a stadium playing only for them.
Theo stopped just past the turnstiles, their entry badges still cooling against his chest, and turned a slow, three-sixty circle. Even his shoes felt too loud.
“I’ve been here twice before,” he said, quietly, to no one in particular. “Once with my parents. Once on a band trip in tenth grade. I don’t remember it being so...”
He didn’t finish. Kristina caught the trailing edge and filled in with a smile, one side of her mouth curled up, hands tucked into the kangaroo pocket of her navy hoodie. She was in full off-duty mode: no makeup, sneakers, hair unstyled except for a single black headband corralling the curls away from her face. “Haunted?”
He grinned, but didn’t look at her. “I was gonna say ‘empty,’ but haunted works.”
He found himself veering to the right as they advanced into the plaza, his brain still bracing for the collision of a double-wide stroller. There were no strollers. No cast members waving, no balloon vendors, no little girls in Elsa dresses shrieking for character hugs. He kept drifting, sidestepping ghosts.
Kristina noticed, of course. She had a way of tracking everything he did, but saying nothing unless he did it twice. “You keep dodging invisible people,” she said, as they came up to the central fountain.
“It’s muscle memory,” Theo said. “My mom had this thing where she’d pretend to get lost in crowds, just to test if I was paying attention. So I learned to scan, always.” He gestured at the vacant walkways, the breeze picking up the taste of chlorine and concrete. “Now I feel like I’m failing a test I didn’t even know I was still taking.”
Kristina came alongside, so close their sleeves brushed. “You pass. You’re just overqualified.”

I’ve posted the full chapter over on Patreon for anyone interested in taking that walk with them.

As always, thank you for reading, thank you for supporting my stories, and thank you for letting me occasionally disappear down wonderfully strange rabbit holes like this one.

Warmly, and with a side of goofiness,